The Scripps Howard Foundation announced that the Guardian’s reporting on revelations contained in documents leaked by the NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden received the Roy W Howard award for public service reporting.

Other recipients of top Scripps Howard awards included the New York Times for an extensive series on homelessness in New York City, and the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel for a series about the mismanagement of infant blood supplies at hospitals around the United States.

The judges praised the Guardian’s reporting on the NSA Files, led by Glenn Greenwald, Ewen MacAskill and Laura Poitras as required reading. In a statement, the foundation said: “From being the first to report the National Security Agency was collecting millions of US citizens’ phone records, to carefully vetting vast amounts of intomation, and then conducting the first exclusive video interview with Edward Snowden – the source of the top-secret documents – judges said: ‘The Guardian US was the go-to media for one of 2013’s biggest news stories, prompting public discussion of NSA policies’.”

The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel received the Ursula and Gilbert Farfel prize for investigative reporting, for a series about early childhood blood tests that the judges said would “save the lives of children around the country”.

Andrea Elliott of the New York Times was recognised with the Ernie Pyle award for human interest storytelling for Invisible Child, a week-long series of articles that followed a year in the life of one of the city’s 22,000 homelss children.

Guardian US editor-in-chief Janine Gibson said: “We’re honoured by the recognition from the Scripps Howard Foundation for such a distinguished award. We are all deeply grateful for the ongoing recognition and support of our work.”

Admission by Anthony C Thomas that his office doesn’t have investigations open into the controversial surveillance comes as new report reveals NSA can harvest every call made in unnamed foreign country